Just Jordan

HERE is the post about the slippers I bought while pregnant with Boone. Here are the upgrades: I bought these at The Trading Post downtown Saskatoon. Apparently, they sell them in Tisdale as well if you are looking! They came HIGHLY recommended by Deena and my sister-in-law, Brittany. They were pricey (over $80), but I have quickly fallen in love. They are definitely an upgrade from my last pair. I love, love, love them! Hooray for IVIG treatments being over!

Today is it. My last IVIG appointment. I am 35 weeks (if you can believe it) and after this I will be spending my Thursdays elsewhere. Next week I will be with my period 1s as they write their final exam and after that - who knows. January 30 is my last day of work so I have an open schedule (that I am looking forward to filling). At my 33 week IVIG treatment I said goodbye to one of the staff who was going on holidays and wouldn't return before today. She is a warm, loving soul and when she gave me a hug I felt myself tear up. The women who work at CTC have been such a part of my story. I hope never to be back getting poked by them, but I sure hope I see them again.  As much as I have had feelings of sadness about saying goodbye, I almost felt a bit giddy today driving to the hospital. I am almost done. Pregnancy doesn't suit me and I am on my way out. To celebrate my last appointment my sister, Jes, and sister-in-law, Brittany, are coming by to have lunch with me. I order...

Here I am at 28 weeks. I am currently 30 weeks. I have been WAITING to get to 30. It feels like 30 is so much closer to the end than 29! I will also be excited to get to January, which is the next milestone I will be counting down. I don't want this baby coming early for obvious reasons, but I especially want it to wait until 2015 to make it's appearance. I know I had the big rant about my weight the last time I posted. Well, I had an appointment on Friday and I basically didn't gain any weight the last month. Don't panic. I wasn't dieting. I just stopped eating before bed. The main reason for this was my acid reflux. It got so bad that I actually had my doctor prescribe me some medication for it, because I was struggling so badly to control it. I have acid reflux when I am not pregnant and it shows itself mainly by giving me a very sore throat and scratch voice. I will have an ultrasound at the start of January. This would be considered routine for my ...

Today is a quiet day at the hospital. It is treatment day and usually the Clinical Treatment Center is buzzing with clients. Today I have a bay to myself. I am enjoying this quiet change of pace. My treatments started off rough in August (not as rough as when I was pregnant with Boone, mind you), but have gotten almost to the point of easy (GASP). If I drink lots, I have had minimal headaches (and some weeks not any!). I am very tired which is a side affect of IVIG, but I am also 27 weeks pregnant, working full-time and co-parenting 2 kids. Oh, and did I mention I have had a cold for 3 weeks? My mom and sister have both asked me in the last week if I have been getting Braxton Hicks. Apparently, they are so par for my course that I have forgotten to complain about them! I am getting them, but haven't bothered to count how many a day. I will guess somewhere around 20. They occasionally wake me up at night. This isn't because they hurt, but because they push on my bladder and ...

I haven't been around much lately. I have been feeling crappy. Pregnancy crappy. I am not a puker, but I basically felt like dirt for the last 2 months. I am slowly coming out of it, but feel like there is still a ways to go. In fact, I am fairly certain, I won't be out of the first trimester grossness when my treatments start next week. If you are new here (I do have a few new stylish friends!), go HERE to see what those are all about. You could also scroll down and look at the Neonatal Hemochromatosis and IVIG Treatment labels to read more.  While pregnant with Boone I did treatments on Wednesday. This time I have chosen to do them on Thursdays. It is better for my students (we have this crazy Thursday schedule where I only see 1 or 2 of my 4 classes depending on the day) and I think it will be better for me. Thursdays and Fridays after my treatments were really exhausting. I think only having one day of work after them will be good. If you are wondering why I didn't...

Just wanted to let everyone know Boone's last blood work results came back normal. We are thrilled :-) We are now on to everyday medical things like clearing up diaper rashes! Hooray!

On the evening of Tuesday, March 12, I thought I was going into labour. My braxton hicks were much stronger than they usually were and I had a few other "symptoms" that I'd rather not share ;-) I wanted desperately to get things going so I did everything I could to stay active around our house. After an hour of house work the contractions faded.  I was annoyed to say the least! On Wednesday evening, March 13, when my braxton hicks got stronger and I got the same list of other "symptoms" I didn't get my hopes up. Instead, I parked my butt on the couch with Hugh and watched a couple of episodes of "Fringe" (Mine and Hugh's latest Netflicks obsession). My runny nose, sore body, and frequent trips to the bathroom had kept me (and Hugh) up most of Tuesday night. Not wanting to disrupt Hugh's sleep on Wednesday night I decided to sleep in the basement. As I laid in bed I realized that the Braxton Hicks were getting stronger. I started timing th...

We were back at the hospital today to get the rest of Boone's blood work done. One hour, 6 attempts, and a call to the NICU resulted in the bloodwork being taken. Since it took so long to get the blood, the neonatal hematologist was worried the results might not be in today. She is going to call us by Friday to confirm that things are good :-) She gave Boone a newborn check-up and pronounced him completely perfect! Just exactly what we wanted to hear!

My almost 2 day absence from here has nothing to do with having a baby :-( I have come down with what Calder had last week. Thankfully it hasn't developed into the mouth sores tonsillitis yet. My throat is SORE, my nose is SORE and I am feeling sorry for myself that this baby hasn't come. Poor Hugh. Like 8 day overdue Jordan wasn't enough to deal with! hahahaha! Yesterday I met with Dr. M2. I am now 3 cm. No labour though! I see her again on Friday for another ultrasound (to check fluid levels) and have another stress test (they measure the baby's movement and heart rate over approximately 30 minutes). Those two things along with me feeling good baby movement should give us through the weekend to wait for this baby to come on its own!

I usually get around 350 page views a day on my blog. The last week and a bit I have been getting more than 550. My brother's fiance, Brittany, was telling me about how everyone she knows has been asking her, "Any baby news, yet?" I shared with her the increase in traffic on my blog. I had been speculating that people are coming back more frequently to see if we've had the baby yet! Brittany confirmed this for me, saying she has been even checking it multiple times a day to see if there is any news. I had a good laugh about this! Brittany (and other members of my family, I'm sure) may be inflating the number of hits on my blog and they are the ones that are going to be informed the moment we even head to the hospital! I feel like the pregnancy talk is getting old. But that's all I think about and apparently, I'm not the only one :-) So here's some more. . . I met with my ObGyn's partner on Friday, Dr. M2. My ObGyn is on holidays and won't...

I lost the pool. Sitting on my couch still pregnant. Today is Hugh's day. I can tell he is ready to meet our babe. Today is probably the day I am most likely to go into labour. Hugh is the luckiest person I know (and not just because I married him :-). In fact, it can get annoying how lucky he is! UPDATE: Hugh is a loser too. Still pregnant on Thursday, March 7.  Now I am going to see what I can do about NOT having this baby tomorrow (Calder's birthday)!

I'm at a loss these days as to what to write about. Mostly because I am STILL pregnant.  Last week my family started a baby pool. Everyone picked a date for delivery and included what they thought the sex and size of the baby was going to be. As of this morning the only people left in the pool are me (March 5), Hugh (March 6), and Calder (March 13). I guess the bottle of Baileys I put up for the winning date will be staying at our house! Calder is still sick. We had him checked out and he has tonsillitis. The worst part is his poor mouth. His gums and lips are swollen and he has a number of canker sores on his tongue and cheeks. Apparently this can be a symptom of tonsillitis. Calder bit into a bun on Sunday night and started crying it hurt so badly. Later we then got him to try some apple sauce and the spoon came out of his mouth bloody. Needless to say, he was on a purely liquid diet yesterday. I am hopeful today we can get him to eat more of the apple sauce and yogur...

Calder spent Tuesday and Wednesday on the couch with a sore throat and fever. He literally only got up to go to the bathroom. He was so out of it that I even put the cup of apple juice to his lips when he needed a drink. Then last night he woke up puking, so naturally he is back on the couch today. Calder's fever seems to have subsided, so he has perked up a bit this morning. Calder also hasn't puked since 7 am, which gives me a bit of hope that we are making our way out of the woods.  Now - Can I keep this bug at bay??  Typically I get sick just as Calder is on the mend. Time will tell ;-) • • • I had my weekly appointment with my OBGYN yesterday. Everything continues to be good! I am 5 days from my due date (Tuesday, March 5). She let me know that most women have their babies within a week of their due date - so hopefully I won't be over more than that (in fact, hopefully I won't be over at all!). She wants to discuss induction/c-section next week. At this po...

Who thought I would get to 39 weeks? Seriously? Did anyone? I certainly didn't and although I am still a week until my due date, I am ready. So ready, in fact, I was basically depressed yesterday that I hadn't gone into labour yet! I have been feeling 39 weeks pregnant. Full. Full. And more full. I have been having an increased number of Braxton Hicks - which make me feel gross. I told Hugh last week that I was getting so big I had started waddling. He replied as sweetly as possible, "Honey, you have been waddling for a while now." Hahahahaha! The baby continues to move lots, which makes me feel good, but I can't help but think that it has been 4 weeks since I had my last IVIG treatment. I wonder what my antibodies are doing to the baby. I want the baby out :-) • • • I am part of an online group of parents who have lost children to Neonatal Hemochromatosis. There is a mom who is getting very close to needing her first IVIG treatment and her insuran...

At our 36 week ultrasound last week I got some news I wasn't prepared for. The baby had slipped from the 85th percentile to the 35th. I was scared. Dr. M assured me there wasn't anything to worry about. She said I wasn't going to have a big baby and there was good movement and lots of fluid surrounding it. At my 32 week ultrasound Dr. M estimated the baby's weight at 6 lbs 1 oz. At this appointment Dr. M estimated the baby's weight at 6 lbs 4 oz. I was worried. At our 37 week ultrasound this week, I got news I wasn't expecting. The baby was back to measuring big! Dr. Martel said that a cause of this discrepency could simply be that the way the baby is sitting makes it hard for her to get accurate measurements. This week the baby's head had slipped so low that the best she could do was estimate the size. After taking a thorough look around, Dr. Martel told me that her measurements were saying the baby was 7 lbs 6 oz, but she felt that the baby probably we...

This is my first week without my IVIG appointments. My first week not having to drag my butt out of bed and head to the Clinical Treatment Centre (CTC) at the hospital. Last week I had cupcakes and pizza to celebrate, but I wanted something more - I  wanted slippers. After trying on an obscene number of pairs at the mall last week, I went home empty handed and disappointed. This past Wednesday I stepped up my game and went to The Trading Post  and found these gems. Not only do they have beautiful beadwork and are the exact color I wanted, they were made in Saskatoon!

Today is the end of my IVIG treatments. Part of me can't believe it is here and the other part thinks it took an eternity. These treatments started out as a bit of a novelty. A day away from work. Six hours to sleep, read, knit, and relax. It wasn't quite a spa day, but parts of it were really great. As the weeks wore on it got harder to leave my classroom ( I truly believed that my students learned best when I was there. Not to take ANYTHING away from the people who covered my classes - they were fabulous - kids just thrive with a routine and consistency), c hecking Facebook statuses all day started getting boring, and the 8 am start time got exhausting. These last few weeks have been especially hard. I am sure part of that is due to the end being so near, but it has also been frightfully cold and leaving the house at all has become a chore. This experience has given me a greater appreciation for anybody who goes in on a regular basis for a medical treatment (like thos...

My skin colour matches our walls in this picture. That is not good! I will be 34 weeks on Wednesday!   I am really trying to focus on enjoying each moment of this pregnancy. I am starting to get a bit anxious to have this baby - I want to know FOR SURE it is healthy, but I also know that these last moments with my baby safely stowed away in my belly are really special too. On Friday I had a doctor's appointment. I have 2 more IVIG appointments left (they finish at 35 weeks) and I asked Dr. M why they don't go right up to the moment we have the baby. She said that there is some indication that the treatment provides no benefit after 35 weeks and that there is a school of thought that it is better for the baby to have all of the IVIG out of my system when I go into labour. I am definitely NOT sad I only have 2 treatments left - Just scared about what that means for my baby (I don't want my stupid antibodies attacking). I had an ultrasound on Friday as well. Dr. M said...

I have been feeling a bit out of sorts the last couple of days. In an effort to pin down what is going on I have stumbled on sad, worried, stressed, tired, sore, and scared. None of these emotions have been overwhelming, but I have been constantly feeling some lingering residue of them the past few days. Ultimately I think it boils down to the fact that there are so many things I want to do, but physically can't. I get crampy, sore, and tired extremely easily. I would say I can do about 1/2 an hour of walking around at a time - and then I need at least an hour on the couch to get back to feeling "normal". I can't even sit at the computer for extended periods without my Braxton Hicks getting out of control. I know I am at home to take it easy, but it sucks when I feel like I am not accomplishing anything in a day. My only saving grace has been Calder. He has been home with me, save a couple of afternoons a week. I have moments of feeling like super mom (making heal...

I don't think I posted about our ultrasound on the 24th - Everything looked great. The baby is measuring above average and my placenta looks great as well. Calder was very pumped to see the baby. The tech was fabulous with Calder giving him a little tour after she had done her thing. She got a great view of the baby's profile and Calder is quick to imitate the baby opening and closing it's mouth if you ask him what he saw! I am officially 32 weeks! Hooray! Next goal is 35 weeks. I am not sure why this is the goal - possibly because Tripp was born at 35 weeks - but maybe also to do with the fact that my last IVIG treatment is at 35 weeks. I had an appointment with my OBG yesterday. My fundal height  measured 34 cm. Fundal height should be within 2 cm of the number of weeks pregnant you are. The fact that I measured over the number of weeks goes along perfectly with the ultrasound from two weeks prior (the baby was measuring above average in size there as well). My next ...